100,000hrs of On-Orbit Electric Propulsion and MAXAR’s First Electric Orbit Raising

Abstract

Maxar Technologies is one of the world’s leading satellite manufactures, with more than 90 spacecraft operating in geostationary orbit. At the writing of this paper, 38 of these include Hall Thrusters, accumulating over 100,000 hours of on-orbit operation. The first of these, launched in 2004, recently expelled all Xenon; exceeding its design life by 2 years. In 2018 we launched our first 4.5kW subsystem and currently have 5 of these spacecraft on-orbit. This paper will summarize our electric propulsion subsystem: from the build, electric orbit raising, on-orbit stationkeeping, and end of life operations.